Relief from Pressure

The forecast said rain,
hot muggy air confirmed it,
we still had almost thirty acres
of alfalfa mowed and ready to bale.
The minute the dew dried off
we went to it. The baler plunger
shoving in there 45 strokes per minute,
the needles slipping through and
the knotters tying, a bale kicked out
every ten strokes, four a minute,
we couldn’t do better than that.
Dust rose and the sweat poured down,
sticky, hot, half a sun showing,
the temperature boosting up and up.
Twenty minutes for lunch and
start again.
Then they began to loom out of the west,
high, snow-topped thunderheads
with a row of windclouds below.
They towered up there and kept coming.
Streaks of lightning cut through them,
the air stood still, thunder rumbled.
As we scooped up the last windrow
the rain began with a rush of wind ahead.
We hit for the barn in high gear,
drove in under cover when the deluge came.
But we had finished and after a bath
and supper I saw a rainbow arched
in the east and I was courteous
though firm with two men at the front door
who tried to sell me cemetery lots.